Saturday was the day that Grunley was to erect their construction crane for the L2 Development at 14th and Wallach. Residents had previously written Councilman Jim Graham’s office asking whether the street could support the crane (in addition to the traffic problems) and suggested that 14th Street instead be used. After all, it’s already demonstrated it can support and handle the weight and size of such a crane…twice.

Wallach after the bug-out of construction trucks. They left in a hurry

But no, apparently the order had been handed down by DDOT – whenever the public had any input into that is a question – and so Saturday Wallach was shut down, cars were towed and in came the trucks.

Little problem. The street started to crack.

“We’re sinking here,” one of the construction engineers told me after the street full of trucks, crane parts at 12.5 ton weights bugged out. He went on:

“We really don’t know what’s down there. It’s soft. It could be bad backfill, we just don’t know.”

So what was the next step? “We don’t know. Maybe we build a ramp from Wallach to the pit so we can build it. We just don’t know what’s under there.”

So this happened on 13th Street how exactly?

Hearing that – twice – from one of the crane engineers is not encouraging. In addition to the damage to several people’s houses, including this from a house on Wallach facing 13th Street. Just how a construction truck ended up doing this on 13th Street is, again, another mystery.

So once more we ask: why not set the crane on 14th Street – where we already know it can be supported? And beyond that, just how much is there that we just don’t know about under our feet? We’ve written several times before here of neighbors who dug their basement’s down just a little too much, and now had constant flooding problems. The water table is obviously very high here…if a little basement floods, is it any surprise so many developers are asking for such large variances to not dig down for the required amount of parking?

To be continued.

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4 responses to ““We’re Sinking””

Some revisionist history here: The prior complaints to DDOT weren’t about Wallach not being able to support the weight of the crane. They were about traffic and parking. And your photo doesn’t show damage to a “house,” at least not that I can see. These inaccuracies notwithstanding, L2 needs to make Wallach whole for this debacle.

Mrs.Kravtiz, you have no idea the content of the letter I sent to the Councilman.
Sedond, you see no damage? talk to our neighbor Justin Rood who was livid after seeing the construction truck back into his yard. Talk to the multiple neighbors who can show you tree branches pulled down.

Isn’t Mrs. Kravitz the target audience for this blog? Why take shots at her? 🙂

Doug, I’m just trying to keep you honest, that’s all. None of the damage that you have described is damage to a “house.” And, as I said, L2 obviously needs to make things whole regardless. What they did was neither professional nor acceptable.